Tuesday, February 24, 2009

If you're looking for an investment that has proven returns, you may not be sure just where to look in today's ailing economy. What about REITs? REITs, or Real Estate Investment Trusts are known for consistent returns and can be a strong and always positive part of your investment portfolio.

Sure, everyone wants to find the next great investment, an investment that will bring them the big bucks and make them an overnight millionaire. Although this does happen, the cases of that are few and far between. Instead, you need to focus on making sure you have a diverse portfolio that will hold you through all times.

Consider this scenario. You see the next big thing coming. You sink all of your money into that particular thing and wait for it to reach the top. Before you get a chance to pull out, the market plummets, taking all of your profits with it and possibly even some of your principal. That's a horror story that comes true for plenty of investors year after year. The flaw in their thought is that they put all of their eggs in that one basket! When the basket fell, everything went with it.

Now consider this scenario. You see the next thing coming and put a good portion of your investment funds in that arena, while still also putting some of your money into more secure or long-term investments like real estate. You again wait for the investments to reach the top, but the bottom falls before you expect. While you may take a major hit on the one side, that other, long term investment side of things you had also been putting money into will still be there and will give you a little bit of a base to rebuild from. You will still have a portfolio with some strength, versus one that is nearly empty.

Real estate is often considered the rock when it comes to investment, just ask Donald Trump who says, "It's tangible, it's solid, it's beautiful. It's artistic, from my standpoint, and I just love real estate."

The good news is while being solid, REITs can still bring a pretty good profit. Consider that many REITs make a 10-14 percent return every year. That's a nice strong return when it happens for 10, 20 or 30 years without fail! If you look at the overall performance of the stock markets and most mutual funds, you will see there is not much difference in the two for long-term returns.

When you're ready to start investing in real estate, you need to make sure you know what you're getting into before you buy. While you could search all over and try to find out for yourself, there is another option as well. Consider a website like REITBuyer.com. REITBuyer.com offers all the information you need to understand REITs, where they come from and how to best begin investing. In addition, you don't have to go anywhere else when you are ready to add REITs to your portfolio, as they are also investment real estate brokers. It's one stop shopping for a stronger and more secure financial future!

Have you taken a look at your investment portfolio lately? If you have, and it's filled with the normal stock and bond investments, you may have noticed that there has been a lot of damage to those investments in the past year or so. With the credit crunch and the market crash, most investments are half, or less, of what they should be.

This is when you should consider what you should be doing to hedge those other investments. This is where REITs come in.

REITs are Real Estate Investment Trusts. These are funds where you fund a real estate management company. There are a variety of REITs out there. Some offer a way to back real estate developers who are taking on new ventures in construction. Others are meant to fund management of residential real estate such as apartment complexes, condominiums or even neighborhoods. Still others use the funds put into the REIT to operate commercial real estate interests.

I think Louis J. Glickman said it best when he said, "The best investment on earth is earth.” Real estate is always a wise investment. No matter what happens the land will always be there. Sure it may waiver in value from time to time, but in the long run, it will always be around, unlike businesses that can close their doors and take your investments down with them.

With this said, adding a REIT or two to your portfolio it would offer you a little more diversity and security in your investments.

You never know what the stock market will do. Just in the past few decades we have seen a number of sweeping changes in the market that completely broke some investors. Think of how many people you know who went bust during the Doc.com era.

Often the problem for them was they were too focused on the flavor of the month. They were putting everything they had into the new Dot.coms hoping to continue to ride the boom and make great profits. While they did see some great profits, those did not last forever. For those who kept putting everything they had into the doc.com market, they felt the agony of defeat in a major way when the market fell, many losing everything they had.

While there is nothing wrong with trying to jump in on an up and coming thing and make a great profit, it comes down to the old 'all your eggs in one basket' cliché. You don't want to have everything hedging on one investment. Instead have a diverse portfolio so if there is a drop in one area, you have other investments hedged against it.

In this case, even when there is a drop in the stock market and mutual funds, real estate usually will hold pretty strong through the down times, keeping you from feeling that all of your investments have been swept away.

When you're ready to take a step towards diversity, make sure to do it right. Going to a website like ReitBuyer.com will help you do just that. They will not only give you the research and information you need to buy wisely, but they are also real estate brokers for these investments and can help you seal the deal.

About Me

http://www.reitbuyer.com is an Online Brokerage specializing in REITs and Real Estate Mutual Funds – 1st and Only Site Dedicated To REITs: Real Estate Investment Trusts - Mutual Funds. A place for the small investor to own a piece of world class real estate.